Chapter Text
“Ack! Matt! Your robot just shocked me!” Lance yelled, rubbing his arm.
“Sorry Lance, Pidge and I are still working out the bugs,” Matt said, glancing at his mechanical contraption on the bench next to him, then promptly went back to stuffing his face.
Lance shrugged and turned back to the great feast and started spooning some pumpkin stuffing onto his plate.
“I don’t know why you have a giant metal… thingy when it’s only the first day back! You can save your deadly projects for when we get back to our dormitory at least,” Lance said.
“True, but! Veronica and I had an idea on how to get the thermoregulator operational! I just didn’t get a chance to finish with all the wires on the train.”
Lance made a face, pinching his lips together and drawing his eyebrows, “if you’re going to be macking with my sister on the train you don’t need to tell me about it you know.”
Matt turned to Lance surprised and started chocking. Lance began patting him on the back, rolling his eyes at Matt’s attempt to deny it. He already heard about it from his older sister on the carriage ride to the castle and he wouldn’t be doing his job as the little brother if he didn’t tease Matt about it.
Lance looked at his sister at the Gryffindor table and smiled as she raised her eyebrows at him from across the hall. Unfortunately, she was sitting a few people away from Keith. His eyes trailed a bit to the right and he accidentally made eye contact with him. Although was he already watching him? Keith looked surprised then promptly began scowling.
Great, thought Lance. Starting early this year.
Lance and Keith had been rivals ever since Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw in quidditch his third year. When Lance was headed back from the pitch he ran into Keith and decided to congratulate him on their victory and compliment the way he caught the snitch flying upside down. Keith decided that instead of a thank you, he should instead reply, “Who are you?”
As if Lance’s didn’t get him on the shoulder a few times during the game as beater. He was in his quidditch robes still! The nerve!
Lance remembers the whole thing like it was yesterday.
“Uh, the name’s Lance? You know, the Ravenclaw that just played against you like, just now?”
“Oh,” Keith said, “I remember. You’re a chaser.”
Lance had spluttered and stormed off before he could think of anything that didn’t sound pathetic or garbled coming out of his mouth.
Truth is, Lance kinda thought Keith was cool and was trying to find a way to talk to him for a while. In class, Keith was always the first to raise his hand and he was never wrong when the professors called on him, even now, and even though present Lance would never admit it, his charm work has always been impressive.
Ever since then, Lance decided to make his presence a point in Keith’s life. Potions? He bet Keith that his would work better and make him 25, spoiler alert, it did, and Keith spent that afternoon going to classes in an 11-year-old body. Herbology? He bet Keith he could repot more baby Mandrake’s than him. Although, when he was rushing one of the babies knocked off his earmuffs and he passed out so he can’t really be sure, but he will still argue that he won that one. History of Magic? Him and Keith glare at each other as both their hands shoot up whenever the professor asks the class a question.
In the Great Hall, Lance was staring at Keith and Keith decided to raise his eyebrows. Lance decided that if Keith wanted to be that way, then well, he could do it better. Lance smirked at him and started getting up, noticing how Keith got red and looked a bit surprised again before he scowled harder.
Man, it’s easy to get under his skin.
“Come on,” Lance said to Matt, “Off to the dormitories.”
~
First day of classes began with advanced potions. He passed his O.W.L.S last year with Outstanding for potions and he happens to know that Keith only got Acceptable but still good enough for the course. He wasn’t looking forward to the N.E.W.T. S for potions, the exams last year nearly killed him, and he didn’t know how his schedule for studying this year as Quidditch captain would be. He remembers that someone, probably Hunk, would leave him hot chocolate spelled to stay warm whenever he accidentally fell asleep in the library, the cup was even enchanted to sing a song that woke him up and made the listener more alert and focused every 30 minutes. He knows that’s like, 90% the reason he did as well as he did and this year the exams would take even more effort.
Lance took his seat next to Pidge, their green tie on with a knot instead of done properly. Lance tugged on it so they would stop organizing their ingredients long enough for Lance to fix it. Lance looked to the board and saw Amortentia spelled out. They hadn’t even gotten the syllabus and they were starting off strong.
“Welcome students,” Professor Alfor said, “Listen carefully. You will take a syllabus on your way out, but for this first lesson we will be starting with the easiest potion you will see this year. This potion requires little preparation but be aware students this does not mean that it is not dangerous. Can anyone tell me what this potion is and what could make it so?”
Lance shot his hand up immediately but saw out of the corner of his eye Keith do the same.
“Yes Keith?”
Dang it.
“Amortentia is a love potion and takes the smell of what and who you love most. It is notable for causing the person who ingests it lovesick for the person who gave it to them.”
“Yes, and dangerous because?”
“Because it renders the recipient incapable of making their own decisions and blinds them to the flaws of their person of interest,” Lance finished.
“Yes! Five points to Ravenclaw!”
Lance looked at Keith and raised his eyebrows as Keith rolled his eyes at him. Point one for Lance, or five, he supposes.
~
Once they were dismissed to start brewing, he set about cutting and squishing the Beetleplum.
“Lance, can you get some more lemon fern? I accidentally missed a bundle,” Pidge instructed from where they sat, stirring their potion, three clockwise, one reverse.
“Sure Pidge, and uh, stir half a tick slower, yeah just like that, thanks.”
Lance walked to the supply cabinet passing Keith and his partner’s potion on his way, he glanced in his potion, pink, but slightly off hue. Thace appeared to be gathering more supplies from the supply cabinet for them.
“You could’ve let me finish the question you know,” Keith said, startling Lance from his inspection.
“Huh? Oh, you snooze you lose Keith,” Lance said, leaning on the table in Keith’s space, but more like his body was draped across Thace’s notebooks as he got closer to Keith. He glanced at his beetle plum and saw it looked like someone had hacked it instead of sliced, which, knowing Keith is probably exactly what he did.
“Squish your Beetleplum before you toss it in, should fix the hue.”
Keith’s eyebrows shot up, “Uh, thanks.” Little did Lance know, but Keith didn’t think there was anything off about the hue in the first place.
Lance realized what he had done and shot straight up, before saying rather loudly, “My potion is gonna smell better than yours!”
“Lance that’s not really how it works.”
But Lance had walked away halfway through that sentence to retrieve his lemon fern, walking quickly because he was worried about his potion starting to look orange and not because Keith looked cute, with his appreciative smile, no! Not cute. Not at all.
~
The potion had instructions to sit overnight, so once they finished with stirring for an hour, they left the dungeons to meet Hunk and head to the courtyard for break.
“Lance, could you wait a minute please?” Professor Alfor asked at the front of the room.
“I’ll catch up,” Lance said to Pidge, who nodded and left with the rest of the class. Lance caught Keith giving him a questioning look, he just shrugged in reply.
“Hello Professor.”
“Lance, I asked you to stay because I wanted to talk about your future in this course. I can’t help but notice that you are very skilled in potion making, something that few inquisitively have.”
“What?”
“We could do extra lessons on more advanced potions in fact, if you would like to see to a future as a potion master, which would of course boost your score on your N.E.W.T.S if you do well, think of it as extra credit.”
“Look Professor, I- I’m flattered, but I’m not that good, I mean I don’t even know what I want to do after I graduate, I just follow the directions really I-”
“Lance.” Lance stopped rambling and blinked owlishly at Professor Alfor.
“Was it in the book to stir at exactly six ticks per clockwise rotation? Or to squish the Beetleplum for more juice, or even when you measured the burner to exactly 10 degrees Celsius for overnight brewing?”
“Well, no-”
“Exactly.”
“Professor, everybody knows that potions left at high temperatures overnight will become too viscous, and I mean, the point of cutting the Beetleplum is for the juice and-”
“Considering you were the only one that did these things I wouldn’t say everyone knows it. Lance, you have a gift. Don’t sell yourself short, I’ll give you until after Quidditch tryouts to decide. Have a good day.”
~
“Look,” said Pidge when he met them and Hunk outside the dungeons, “I know he insulted you or whatever, three years ago,” they added under their breath, “but when are you gonna be done pretending you and Keith aren’t-”
“We aren’t friends Pidge!” Lance interrupted, the tips of his ears betraying his indignation. Pidge raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips, as if the word friends was a surprise to them.
“Right, I invade the personal space and give tips to all my,” they paused, “friends,” Pidge muttered sarcastically.
“Slander! Hunk! Tell Pidge there is no way that Keith and I are friends,” Lance huffed, the three of them falling into step.
“Mortal enemies until one of you kills each other, of course,” Hunk replied, being the best friend ever that he was.
“Aw, I knew I could count on you buddy!”
“Or kisses the other,” Hunk muttered to Pidge, who burst out laughing.
“Hunk!”
They rounded the corner and found Keith leaning against the wall. He shot off the wall when he noticed the trio and burst out, “What did Professor Alfor want?” He winced a little after he asked the question.
Lance was clutching his chest and replied, “Jeez Keith! Give a guy a heart attack! Maybe start with a hello or something.”
“Um, hi.”
“Not anymore Keith,” Lance rolled his eyes fondly, “and um, I guess he wanted to talk about extra lessons.”
“What?” Pidge yelled, “You’re the best potion maker in our class!”
Keith and Hunk both nodded with them, and Lance felt his cheeks burning.
“Not like that. More like,” he took a deep breath, “to be a potion master,” he said too quietly.
He couldn’t look at them, he was too embarrassed to admit Professor Alfor suggested something so insane, in their silence he hung his head.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Asked Hunk.
Lance looked up, then said more clearly, “To be a potion master.”
“Oh,” Keith nodded, “that makes sense.” Lance looked at Hunk and Pidge and found them nodding along with him.
“What?”
“You’re good at potions, Lance.”
Lance looked at Keith and couldn’t stop his jaw dropping to the floor. Suddenly Lance felt his face burning up.
“Um, thanks,” Lance muttered.
Keith started looking a bit pink himself before smiling slightly and saying, “Mine will still smell better tomorrow.”
Lance chuckled before saying, “Yeah right, not with that burner temperature,” Lance shook his head and chuckled some more before looking at Keith and seeing he had gone pale.
“What temperature is it supposed to be!?”
“Um. 10 degrees Celcius.”
“Gotta go,” Lance didn’t get a chance to reply before Keith was running down the corridor.
“Friends,” Pidge muttered to Hunk, who just shook his head in exasperation.
~
The next morning Lance posted the Ravenclaw quidditch tryout announcement. When he turned around, he was surprised to see a crowd standing right behind him, eagerly waiting to write their names on the try out form. They had three spots to fill this year, chaser, keeper, and a seeker. Lance was kinda nervous about that last one. If they wanted a chance to compete against Gryffindor, they were gonna need an equally impressive seeker, but Keith had the fastest flying record and has won more games than any other seeker in school history. The Marmorans, the official quidditch team for London, were supposed to be watching Keith this year to recruit him early.
Lance snuck out of the common room before he could be hounded for trivial questions about try outs.
~
In potions, Lance went to his cauldron and nervously took off the lid. Inside was a perfectly pink Amortentia potion. He leaned over it and took a deep breath. He caught hints of grass, his mom’s garlic knots, something smoky, and another smell he couldn’t quite place. Somehow the contrasting smells were heavenly, and he found himself closing his eyes. A sharp bang startled Lance and he snapped his eyes open to see Pidge with their hand on the lid covering their cauldron.
“Glad it turned out well,” Pidge said smirking.
“Har har, what’d yours smell like? Grease and robot parts?” Pidge blushed a little before smirking again, “why don’t you go check if your mortal enemy’s potion is up to standard.” Lance narrowed his eyes but couldn’t deny it was a good plan, so he turned around and headed to Keith’s desk.
“What have we got over here?” Lance asked, startling Keith from his smelling of the potion. Keith was looking at it as if it had offended him. Lance looked at him questioningly then looked in the cauldron. The potion was the perfect shade of pink as well, if only less shimmery, but still nearly perfect, so nothing worth Keith’s glare.
“Something better than I would’ve done without your advice?”
Lance smiled before adding, “Darn right.”
Keith coughed before asking, “What does- what does yours smell like?”
He wasn’t looking at Lance as he asked and Lance startled before shrugging and saying, “Like quidditch, my mom’s garlic knots, smoke, something else a little, I dunno, it’s not sweet but it’s not bitter? I can’t quite figure it out.”
Keith nodded and looked contemplative. “Cool.”
Lance looked at him expectantly, but when Keith made no indication that he was going to say anything else, Lance added, “and yours?”
Keith looked at Lance with a sense of panic before glaring at his potion again, “Um. Quidditch and Shiro’s house.”
“Makes sense,” Lance said nodding, after an awkward silence Lance added “Hasta la later Keith,” before returning to his desk. Keith seemed a bit weird about his potion, and there was definitely something he was leaving out.
~
A week into term Lance and a group of Ravenclaw kids headed towards the quidditch pitch, only to be met with the sight of red and gold once they got to the field.
“Hey Mullet!” Lance yelled from the grass looking up at Keith who was showing some maneuver to the chasers. Keith glanced at him before flying down to meet Lance.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes! I reserved the field, here look.” Lance showed Keith the written slip from Professor Coran. Keith frowned before pulling out his own note from Professor Sven with permission to use the field at the exact same time.
“I’m about to host try outs,” Lance whined.
Keith looked at him unimpressed, “And what do you think I’m doing?” Lance pouted before he saw Keith deflate.
“Look, why don’t we share? We’ll use the far side.”
“Fine,” Lance muttered, before he turned and smiled brightly to his team. Keith returned to his own team.
“Alright guys, looks like Gryffindor is gonna be using the field too but we’re adaptable so we’ll run plays over here with these goal posts. Let’s see, I’ll start with roll call. Plaxum? Oh, there you are, Romelle? Good, and wait. Allura?”
She waved at him from where she stood in the back, looking embarrassed. She was a seventh year and never played on the school team. He had asked her about it since her dad was in the hall of fame for being a chaser, but she always brushed off the question and talked about her alchemy work.
“Hi Lance,” she said shyly, “sorry I didn’t tell you before, I… wasn’t sure how…”
Lance recovered from his surprise and smiled reassuringly at her, “no problem, let’s see, um… Blumfump?”
~
Halfway into practice Lance was starting to get a bit frustrated. There had been two collisions and after the third near collision Lance had enough.
“Keith!” Lance called when Keith passed by his area, yet again to yell a new drill. “Your half of the field starts over there so tell your players to keep their brooms to themselves!”
As Lance expected, Keith whirled to him, glare in place.
“Your players are the ones that keep cutting mine off! We’re trying to run drills.”
“How about we make it interesting then? Winner gets to use the whole field for the rest of our time slot.”
“What did you have in mind?” Keith asked, but despite acting apprehensive, Lance knew Keith couldn’t back down from a challenge, especially if it involved quidditch. Keith’s smirk only proved it.
“How about a little scrimmage? First team to ten points or first ones to catch the snitch wins.”
“You’re on.”
~
“Okay guys here’s the plan. We’re gonna do a little scrimmage. I think I have seen enough of your skillsets that we can run some mock team scenarios. Now listen, how you fly and how well you play the game is important, but can also be taught, I care more about how we work as a team so keep that in mind as we go through groups.”
“But Lance,” said Plaxum nervously, “How do you expect us to go against Keith without any practice?”
“Oh, Keith’s team isn’t looking for a seeker, and since we have four of you, I’ll have you four rotate with Keith’s team. We already got broom speeds, dives, and vision tests done so now let’s see how you guys do in the real thing.”
~
Lance and Keith were sitting on the brooms in the middle of the field towards the stands, heads whipping back and forth as the quaffle changed possession rapidly. The chasers were doing well with the old players and were communicating well. Although Lance was already considering Plaxum for the open spot. She had a good sense of leadership calling some plays and executing some intense fly maneuvers.
As for the keeper, Rax was doing a great job defending. And Allura? Well, it looked like she had been playing all her life. Her dives were incredible, and she avoided the beaters exceptionally well. All the moments that Lance had asked her about quidditch, she had been holding out. Why she decided now to try-out he still couldn’t figure out.
“You have a good set of recruits this year,” Keith said conversationally, eyes focused and never leaving the game.
“So do you,” Lance replied, turning back to the game, but Keith sighed deeply.
“What?”
“I just,” Keith took another deep breath, “I don’t get why they would make me captain. I’m a seeker, I don’t make strategies, I don’t pay attention to chasers or beaters, I don’t even know how to pick someone to fill our roster,” Keith looked at his players dejectedly, eyes flitting over all of them, his eyebrows drawn together.
Lance took a moment to figure out how to reply, probably too long though because Keith was starting to drift away on his broom.
“Look, first of all you’re kinda a liar.” Keith stopped abruptly.
“What?!” Keith said angrily.
“Hear me out,” Lance continued, “maybe you don’t think you’re a strategist, but I saw you running drills and making plays earlier today. You were working with the chasers one on one, and I saw you showing that beater how to get more power hitting the ball. You may be an impulsive little brooding emo,” Keith huffed, “but, you’re captain because you care about making them better. So, you should trust your instincts because I bet you already know what to do.”
Keith was looking at Lance as if he had never seen him before. When Lance turned to look at him, he was surprised at the earnest expression he had. Since when did Lance and Keith have these heartfelt talks all the time? Was something different this year? They were in a staring match unsure how to break away when suddenly the Ravenclaw team starting cheering. They turned to her to see what the commotion was.
Allura had caught the golden snitch.
~
At dinner that evening Lance was chatting with Matt and Allura, Matt complimenting Allura’s dive that caught the snitch and the way it looked like she was going to fall off her broom from where he was sitting in the stands, when Headmaster Ryner clinked her glass for an announcement.
“Students,” Headmaster Ryner’s voice carried across the hall, and she continued, “we have a special announcement for this term. I assume you are aware of the Triwizard tournament,” the hall collectively gasped, “well it remains cancelled due to safety hazards,” every student let out a breath of relief.
“This year, instead of a Triwizard tournament, we will have students from neighboring schools visit for a two-week period where we will have a cultural celebration. Each school will have a presentation and the festival will be concluding with the Yule Ball.”
The hall burst into claps as students started whispering furiously with each other. Headmaster Ryner cleared their throat and silence fell once again.
“To organize Hogwart’s contribution to the festival, I have personally invited former Hogwarts student, the chaser for Atlas, the professional quidditch team of Manchester, and professional dragon rider, Takashi Shirogane.”
The Great Hall burst into cheers and the doors burst open as Shiro walked in towards the table of professors where there was an extra seat at the end.
Lance looked at Keith and saw that his mouth was hanging open, clearly, he is just as surprised as everyone else.
“Isn’t this so exciting Lance?” Allura asked, a huge smile on her face. Lance then remembered that Allura and Shiro are basically best friends. He graduated just two years ago, but while he was here Allura and Shiro spent a lot of time together. At the time, he couldn’t decide who he was more jealous of. Allura was one of his great friends, and his crush, but Shiro, also kind of his crush, was Gryffindor captain and famous for his flying, and Lance admired him a lot. Eventually Lance got over himself and befriended Shiro after asking tons of questions about quidditch and magical creatures, Shiro’s specialty.
“It’s so exciting,” Lance replied, eyes not leaving Keith’s face, where he was staring at Shiro with fondness and exasperation.
“Hello everyone,” Shiro said at the podium next to Headmaster Ryner. “Thank you, Headmaster, for inviting me here. Some of you might remember me since I graduated two years ago. You also might be wondering what we’re doing for our presentation,” Shiro paused and looked across the Great Hall, eyes landing on Keith, “We will be performing Voltron.”
The great hall exploded into conversation again. Voltron was a well-known but ancient English dragon riding dance. It required five riders to fly their dragons in difficult to manage synchronized moves.
“We’ll be using the Goblet of Fire to select our dragon riders. Unfortunately, only fifth years and up may participate.”
All the younger students groaned in dismay with that list bit of information, but everyone else was excitedly murmuring.
“Thank you Shiro,” Headmaster Ryner said, “You may return to the feast.”
“So, Lance, are you going to be putting your name into the Goblet?” Matt asked knowingly.
“Oh,” Lance said, smiling mischievously, “you bet.”